Comcast posted mixed results for its fourth quarter on Thursday, beating analyst expectations on earnings but slightly missing on revenue.
Once again, Comcast’s broadband business showed signs of significant competition facing cable companies. Comcast said it lost 181,000 domestic broadband customers during the period, although it said the losses were offset by an increase in international subscribers.
The company’s mobile offering remained a bright spot, notching 364,000 additions during the period and bringing its total to more than 9.3 million mobile customers for Comcast’s newest business.
Last year, Comcast said it was shifting its strategy to focus more on growing its mobile business after facing continued pressure in broadband, mainly due to competition from wireless providers like Verizon and T-Mobile.
“The competitive environment for broadband remains intense, similar to prior quarters, but we saw wireless competition step up towards the end of the fourth quarter,” said Comcast CFO Jason Armstrong during Thursday’s call with investors. “Against that backdrop, we continue to advance our new go-to-market strategy we launched earlier this year.”
Here’s how Comcast performed in the period ended Dec. 31 compared with average analyst estimates, according to LSEG:
- Earnings per share: 84 cents adjusted vs. 75 cents expected
- Revenue: $32.31 billion vs. $32.35 billion expected
Net income attributable to Comcast decreased 54.6% to $2.17 billion, or 60 cents per share, compared with $4.78 billion, or $1.24 per share a year earlier.
Adjusting for certain one-time items — like the value of intangible assets, charges associated with investments and prior-year tax benefits that Comcast said made for an “unfavorable comparison” — the company reported adjusted net income of $3.06 billion, or 84 cents per share.
Comcast’s adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization were down 10% to $7.9 billion.
The company’s overall quarterly revenue was up more than 1% to $32.31 billion.
Revenue for Comcast’s connectivity and platforms unit – which includes its Xfinity-branded services across broadband, pay TV and mobile – was down 1% to $20.24 billion.
In particular, revenue fell 1% for the domestic broadband unit to roughly $6.32 billion. While this reflected the decrease in broadband customers, it was partially offset by higher average rates, Comcast said.
In addition to the broadband customer losses and mobile additions, Comcast lost 245,000 pay TV customers during the fourth quarter. The company now has 11.27 million total pay TV customers.
Meanwhile, revenue for the company’s media unit, which includes NBCUniversal, rose 5.5% to $7.62 billion.
This marks the final quarter that NBCUniversal’s earnings report includes its full portfolio of cable networks, as Comcast spun out most of its pay TV networks, including CNBC and MS Now, into the publicly traded entity Versant.
Domestic advertising revenue for the media business was up 1.5% due to the addition of the NBA on NBC, which helped propel overall revenue.
NBC’s streaming service, Peacock, added 3 million paid customers after three quarters of essentially no change. It ended the year with 44 million paid subscribers. The streaming service reported losses of $552 million for the fourth quarter, wider than the $372 million in losses it recorded in the prior year period.
Those losses were due in part to the impact of the NBA rights deal which began during the quarter.
Peacock saw $1.6 billion in revenue compared with $1.3 billion the year-ago quarter.
Comcast’s Universal film studio revenue was down 7.4% to $3.03 billion due to a drop in licensing and theatrical revenue when compared with the prior-year quarter. The releases of “Wicked: For Good” and “Black Phone 2” fell short of last year’s “Wicked” and “The Bad Robot.”
Universal theme parks revenue, however, was up 22% to roughly $2.9 billion, driven by last year’s opening of Epic Universe.
Disclosure: Versant Media is the parent company of CNBC. Comcast was the parent company of CNBC through the fourth quarter of 2025.
